Ephemeral
by ChottoMatte
Summary: Zemyx, AU, slight OOC. Demyx and Zexion are strangers in a crowded metropolis brought together by misfortune and necessity - can their bond withstand the trials ahead of them?  T  for eventual character death/will be M eventually... Started for 6/9 day :D


Zemyx Zemyx Zemyx Zemyx Zemyx

He soaked the earth up through his skin, feet pounding the pavement in the eternal beat of summer. Tourists swarmed the streets, roaming in packs from cheap trinket stall to cheap trinket stall in search of the perfect souvenirs to send back to family members. Demyx watched as two older men and a middle age woman had their wallets removed, raided, and replaced by swift-fingeres street theives. He swerved around crowds of rubes gawking at oily-voiced street performers and spared a second to glance down at the blue watch on his right wrist.

Shit. The flickering digital display proffered him an uncompromising 9:06 a.m. The harassed-looking secretary at the hospital had warned him that the new doctor in charge of his sister's care would not tolerate lateness when it came to scheduled appointments - whether Demyx was late ten seconds or ten minutes, he was screwed. The dusty wind kicked up by a passing delivery truck ruffled his sandy-blonde hair and dried his eyes, but he didn't have time to stop and wipe them. He could feel his grip slipping as the battered sandals he carried grew slick with sweat.

Demyx could just barely see the glass-and-steel front of the hospital jutting out into the air a block ahead of him, and he darted across the last intersection separating him from his goal with an extra burst of speed. He didn't have time to watch for passing cars; he ignored the chorus of honks that followed him as he jogged the last hundred yards to his destination. Stopping briefly outside the automatic doors, he dropped his sweaty sandals to the pavement and toed his way into them. His watch read 9:12 a.m. as he speed-walked past the front desk and descended into the convolution of hallways that comprised the prestigious Destiny Island Community Hospital

By the time he reached the office door of a Dr. Yen Sid, he was a solid quarter-hour late. He cursed his luck and his damnable boss before clearing his throat and knocking cautiously on the door. After a few seconds of tense-hopeful silence, a quiet voice bade him, "Come in, and close the door behind you."

x-x-x

Zexion tapped his foot impatiently as he glared at the clock. It wasn't the timepiece's fault that Dr. Sid's next client was late, but it was the closest object on which he could reasonably heap blame. The good doctor absolutely despised tardiness, and his already-foul temperament made the young intern dread the rest of the day. Spilled coffee and a mis-filed medical record had ruined the good mood with which the doctor had sailed into work. A botched breakfast had rounded out the suckiest morning on the job that Zexion could remember, and now... the late client.

He barely restrained himself from making a very unmanly noise as a timid knock shattered the silence. He coughed instead, and waited a few seconds before intoning, "Come in, and close the door behind you."

He caught his breath as Dr. Sid's newest client shuffled meekly into the small antechamber. The man was drenched with sweat, plastered with street-dust, and grinning sheepishly. His dark blonde hair was plasted to his neck and forhead but stuck up at odd angles where he'd obviously run his hands through it. The messenger bag slung over his shoulder was more metal than cloth - safety pins held together negligible scraps of fabric and shimmered violently in the harsh office light.

The man's tan skin was flushed, either from embarassment or exertion. He caught Zexion's eye, smiled even more sheepishly, and coughed into a white-knuckled fist. "I'm, uh..." He spoke rapidly and seemed to lose confidence when Zexion arched a practiced eyebrow. "I had an appointment regarding my sister at nine, but I'm uh... late," he finished lamely. The intern shook his head imperceptibly and looked down at the register on his desk before making eye contact with the man again.

He endeavored to make his voice as dry as possible as he questioned, "Demyx Wynn, here for a consultation regarding Namine Wynn, scheduled for 9 a.m., precisely?"

The man swallowed around an apparent lump in his throat. "Er, yeah. That'd be me." He scratched the back of his neck absentmindedly as Zexion pinned him with a glare.

"You are aware that Dr. Sid has a strict no-late-appointments policy? He could have moved onto another, more timely case or client in the..." he checked the clock hanging on the wall above Demyx's head. "In the sixteen minutes that have elapsed since your scheduled appointment time?"

The intern wasn't sure he'd ever seen a client's fall more quickly. The gregarious-looking smile was overtaken by a cautious frown, and deep frown lines appeared in the blonde's now-dry forehead. "I am aware that Dr. Sid has better things to do than wait around for late appointments, but I hoped that if he hadn't left the office he would still deign to see me this morning. My sister's treatment is of the utmost importance to me and my... family."

Zexion was too taken-aback to question the pause in Demyx's speech. The scruffy-looking surfer-type that had waltzed into the office with an almost-palpable air of simpleness surrounding him, but the frustration in his voice was only barely matched by the polished precision. The interne hadn't heard such cutting delivery since... well, since his most difficult college professor had torn his Bachelor's Thesis into shreds, both verbally and literally.

The bluenette nodded quickly and murmured, "I'll call and see if he's still in. If he is, you're free to stay for the remainder of your one-hour apoointment time." He removed the phone receiver from its cradle and brought it to his ear before pressing and holding the giant red button on the cradle's face. A muted beeping scrambled his thoughts for a few seconds while he waited for his page to be answered. He heard a scrambled clicking from the other end before Dr. Sid's voice crackled into his ear.

"Yes, Zexion? This had better be urgent - that damn late appointment has got me so off-schedule it's not funny." The doctor sounded taciturn and terse, and Zexion cringed inwardly.

He replied, "Yes, Sir - that's exactly why I'm calling. Your appointment just arrived a moment ago, and he still wishes to see you."

Sid sighed into his mouthpiece, breath pushing a cacaphony of sound into his intern's brain. "Yes, yes - send him in, if you must. I suppose he still owns the next forty minutes of my day." The sound cut off with a click, and Zexion returned the phone to its resting position.

He looked back up at Demyx, sighed, and pointed imperiously at a frosted-glass door set deep into an adjacent wall. "He'll see you now."

The blonde's face transformed again, this time into a radiant grin. He nodded shallowly and whispered a half-intelligible 'thank you' in Zexion's general direction, and entered the doctor's office proper.

x-x-x

Demyx turned the stiff handle off the doctor's door as quietly as he could manage, afraid that any loud, sudden noises would provoke Dr. Sid into a tirade condemning all late-comers. The door pushed open on well-oiled hinges, barely making a sound as it swung. The office inside appeared to be shady and cool, well-appointed with pseudo-modern furniture and a multitude of potted plants. Anatomical diagrams and specimen jars filled the ranks of shelves that covered each wall from floor to ceiling. The doctor himself sat in an overstuffed brown leather office chair that swivled gently to face the blonde when he entered.

'

Yen Sid's face was not ugly, but he certainly embodied the wrinkly-wise-sage stereotype. His short white hair was cut close to his scalp and drifted in swathes over his generous forehead. His eyes were kind, if full of impatience, and Demyx found himself relaxing minutely. He'd imagined some vicious young hotshot, hyped up on success and new money, who would jeapordize his sister's life to prove his mettle to the hospital's higher-ups. Yen Sid's success rate was indeed the most renowned in the state, but Demyx couldn't imagine this sweet old cream-puff of a man putting any person in harm's way for the sake of a bigger paycheck or a heftier bonus.

The doctor gestured magnanimously to a metal chair positioned directly in front of his desk, and stood as Demyx made his way into the room. "Mr. Wynn, I presume? I am Doctor Yen Sid, director of Oncology at Destiny Island Community Hospital. I believe your sister Namine has just been transferred into my unit, correct?"

Demyx shook the doctor's outstretched hand and perched himself on the awkward steel contraption. He took a minute to ponder its abstract right angles and superfluous attachments before replying, "Yes, that's right. I got a notice of it yesterday morning via letter, and scheduled this appointment as soon as I could... I apologize for my lateness, my boss wouldn't let me off work early on such short notice and a patron puked just as I was getting ready to leave, plus the traffic and tourists get so bad in the summer you can barely walk your own streets, and then the delivery trucks start in and -" he seemed to realize he was rambling. Blushing, he folded his hands in his lap and looked down meekly.

Dr. Sid nodded slowly. "I understand, boy. I knew that scheduling a meeting with so little warning could be potentially problematic, but you must understand how serious your sister's condition has become."

Demyx swallowed nervously. "No, that's exactly the problem - we all thought she was in remission, and she just came in for a screening and a checkup for this cold she's got... We had no idea that she'd be transferred all the way to a department director. No one seems to be willing to tell us exactly what's wrong, so I decided to talk to you in person."

"Really?" Sid frowned. "The nurses were authorized to give you any imformation you might have requested. What were the names of the staff you asked, son?"

The blonde flushed a darker shade of pink. "N-no, it's not their fault - they've all known Nami and I since we were kids, and they always hate to bring us more bad news. They hesitated to tell me the first time Nami got diagnosed, and it just... it frightens me that they won't tell me now." The deep worry lines that had so intrigued Sid's receptionist appeared again, appearing so naturally Demyx's face that the doctor wondered they ever disappeared. The boy continued, "Would you mind just... giving it to me plain, doctor? I can handle almost anything right about now."

Dr. Sid frowned, shook his head, and sighed. "I'm afraid it's not that easy, son. We're not quite sure yet, but we were concerned with some tests we ran during Namine's check-up. It seems her white blood cell count has jumped more than four times our healthy estimations since her last screening."

Demyx paled. "Does - does that mean -"

"We're not one hundred percent sure yet, son... but it seems as if your sister's leukemia has returned full-force. It's progressed from stage three into stage four, and it's heading for stage five. She's been almost incoherent since she was admitted - has she shown any symptoms recently?"

The blonde frowned, thinking back. "I give her her meds every morning at the same time, and she hasn't reptorted anything abnormal to me. I told her to tell me the second she started to feel under the weather or even a little 'off,' which is why she had this check-up scheduled..."

"She's been exhibiting strong indicators since we transferred her to my department - she must've gotten fairly adept at hiding them while you were around." Upon seeing his client's growing frown, he added, "Not that it's any fault of your own, boy - patients have done stranger things than hide symptoms to avoid hospital stays. I'm just thankful we caught this before she could escalate any further."

Demyx nodded forlornly and replied, "Of course. I shouldv'e guessed something was off - she spends more time than ever painting in her room these days. She told me it was for a show her school was doing... But it made me wonder..." He sighed and folded his arms, eyes shining but not yet full of tears.

The two men sat in relative silence for a minute or two, pondering the next steps to be taken. Demyx scheduled two more appointments for the following weeks and filled out payment forms as Dr. Sid collated informational brochures and necessary forms. They parted at the end of Demyx's one-hour session with grim expressions and a firm handshake, and the blonde made his way back out into the office's antechamber.

x-x-x

When the blonde client shuffled back out of Dr. Sid's office, he was almost unrecognizable. His wary, cheerful demeanor had been replaced by a chilly cloud of determination that Zexion could feel pressing on him when the man drew closer. One look into Demyx Wynn's cerulean eyes showed nothing but molten steel and glowing ember veiling a deep, wrenching fear. The intern gulped as the man placed a packet of signed forms onto the clear glass of his desk and nodded before turning around and stalking out of the office altogether.

Zexion sat paralyzed for a few seconds, echoes of desperation shaking his own heart. The too-shiny glint of recent sorrow was clearly visible in Demyx's eyes, and the bluenette found himself wondering what kind of disheartening news the blonde could have received from gentle old Dr. Yen Sid.

He glanced briefly at the top form, and his breath caught in his throat.

T-cell prolymphocytic leukemia... prognosis 7 months... leukocytic overload... median life expectancy...

He glanced back up at the now-empty doorway and paused as a single tear slipped from the corner of his eye. Namine Wynn... little sister and sole charge of Demyx Wynn... 11 and 21, respectively... Out of remission...

How sad, he thought. To have to deal with such news alone on a day like this, when the entire world was bustling with life and joy...

How very sad.


End file.
